If anyone should teach our kids about guns, it's the Defence Force.

This from an editor of Rod and Rifle magazine, as pictures emerge of Palmerston North students holding semi-automatic weapons.

It was part of a leadership programme, where the army taught taught 9-13 year olds at Whakarongo School how to hold, assemble and shoot guns.

Rod and Rifle magazine's John Herbert told Rachel Smalley the soldiers wouldn't have treated it lightly.

"Their attitude towards safety is exemplary, and there would have been no danger to the children here.

"Whether it should have gone that far, yes there probably is some debate around that, but I think the intent here was honest."

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